The SMART/Axis Logistics Semi-Unsatisfying-Partial-Resolution
We were scheduled to have the big vote for zoning the SMART/Axis Logistics 2000 acre monstrosity to Heavy Industrial. But instead: they withdrew their application. So this chapter of the story lurches to its anticlimactic conclusion. (Backstory: here, here, here, here, here, and here.)
This isn’t exactly a bad thing – a bad thing would be if the Heavy Industrial zoning had passed. But it doesn’t mean that the community can let their guard down, either.
Here’s what I imagine: city councilmembers were squirming under the pressure to deny, and told the developers that a denial was likely. It’s better for the developer to withdraw and regroup, rather than get the denial. If they had gotten denied on the zoning request, they’d have to wait a year to re-apply. This way they can play their cards close to their vest and figure out what they want to do.
Besides: the developer still has the original 880 acres zoned Heavy Industrial and ready to go.
Citizen Comment: Mostly frustrated citizens who want answers to the current state of the SMART terminal. Which development agreement is currently in effect? What’s the future hold?
That’s RR 12 going through up through the middle of the pink part. (Everything to the right of RR 12 was added in May 2022.)
Back in November 2021, Council said that La Cima could have movie studios in their commercial zoning areas. Just like with revising the SMART development agreement, this passed on a single reading, and no one in the community got wind of it.
Then in June 2022, it was time to decide what kind of tax credits the studio should get. (Me, in my tiny voice: why should they get any?) This is when the community first heard about the movie studio. Everyone got mad, because we really should not be building on the aquifer. But it was too late: that ship had sailed the previous November.
This past Tuesday, it got annexed and zoned. The film studio is the dangly part of the pink land in the picture above:
That’s about 147 acres.
The inner part is film studio, and the outer part has to stay natural:
So there you have it. It’s been annexed and zoned. In ten years, we’ll know if this was an extremely bad idea, a moderately bad idea, or if it worked out pretty well, after all.
Passes 7-0.
…
Item 14: Universal Gas Franchise.
Apparently in Texas, any gas company can demand to have access to dig up your streets and put their pipes in so that they can sell gas to the people of your town, and you have to let them. More accurately, you have to give them the same contract as the other gas companies have.
In this case, it’s someone called Universal Gas Ltd. The city gets 5% of their profits, and in exchange, they’re allowed to dig up our roads and put pipeline in and whatever else. It sounds like they’re aiming for Riverbend Ranch, but it wasn’t entirely clear.
I got annoyed with the Universal Gas lawyer, who kept answering questions that were directed at city staff. For example, Saul Gonzalez asked if 5% was typical for the cut that the city gets. The Universal Gas lawyer hopped right in and said, “Oh yes! If anything, it’s too high! Usually they’re 2-5%. You wouldn’t want us to have to pass those costs on to the consumer, would you?” [waggles eyebrows in threatening corporate-speak.]
The city manager, Stephanie Reyes, said that every few years we conduct a rate study, and then implement new rates across the board.
Passes 7-0.
…
Item 15: The city is taking over Southside’s home repair project. This has been in the works for awhile.
…
Item 16: The animal shelter has hired a vet, and they’ll be joining the Animal Services Committee.
…
Items 17-18: Top Secret Executive Session about wastewater plants going up way out on 123. I’m guessing this is also related to Riverbend Ranch.
And that’s the whole meeting! It was weirdly short. But the workshops were very interesting, so go read about those next.
Items 15-16: 38.5 acres is being annexed and zoned. La Cima is growing.
I found myself wanting to do a deep dive on La Cima. How did we get here? I thought maybe I could try to finally wrap my head around La Cima. (I’d also like to do this for Whisper Tract and Trace.)
So La Cima was first approved in 2013, as Lazy Oaks. Most of the city’s online archives only go back to 2014 though, so I literally can’t find a map of the original parcel. It was 1,396 acres in size.
In 2014, it grows to 2,029.023 acres (and maybe gets renamed?) It looked like so:
That’s RR12 right at the entrance of the pink part, right where Old 12 meets new 12.
So in 2014, that tan part – all residential houses – didn’t wrap around to the left of the conservation open space, and now it does. Plus they added apartment complexes. (I’m okay with the apartment complexes being added! I don’t like developing over the aquifer, but I don’t want it to be a cloister of wealthy people, either.)
Basic stats, 2018: – 2800 dwelling units: old 2,400 houses + 400 new apartment units – 35.6 acres parkland – 791 acres conservation – 2,029 old acres + 394 new acres = 2,423 total acres
In August of 2020, it grows again:
Adding that new pink part in the lower right hand side.
Basic stats, 2020: – Still 2800 dwelling units – 37.66 acres parkland – 800 acres conservation – 2,423 old acres + 129 new acres = 2,552 total acres
In November 2021, we added amended it to allow for the film studio. The plan seems to be for it to go in that new pink section on the lower right.
Of course, the fights weren’t until the following June, when everyone was super pissed about building on the aquifer. Listen: they are absolutely correct to be mad! It’s just that the fight wasn’t held at the correct time, legally speaking. By this point, City Council was just trading environmental protections for tax credits.
The funny thing is that the really big change came just one month earlier, and no one paid any attention.
This is in May, 2022, and it’s a pretty drastic change:
It jumped clear across RR12!! That whole tri-colored bit on the upper right is brand new!
So what happened? A lot of housing was relocated. That light green piece in the upper left used to be residential, but now it’s conservation. So there are good parts and bad parts.
I don’t know. It’s a complicated thing. There’s a lot more conservation, but a lot more building and living on the aquifer. I feel weird about it.
(Wasn’t I paying attention last May? Apparently not! I listened to the entire meeting and did not have a single thing to say about La Cima! You probably shouldn’t trust me very much.)
Also, not that much of it has actually gotten built yet. They’re chipping away at it.
So now we’re all up to speed on La Cima. So what actually happened last Tuesday? A very a small bit, 38.5 acres, is finally getting annexed and zoned:
That pink square is my best guess of where it is.
Max Baker attempts to persuade the developer to use something water-friendly: either purple pipe or rainwater detention. He gets brushed off for both, in a slightly condescending way.
The vote: Yes: Everyone except Max No: Max
………………
Item 17: There’s an application to rezone 1.35 acres in the middle of Blanco Gardens.
Here’s Blanco Gardens, and they want to rezone this pink square:
So really RIGHT in the middle of Blanco Gardens. Aren’t there houses right there already?
Yes. This is a block full of houses, but it happens to have some undeveloped land interior to it, and the developer wants to add houses inside the block.
Some important details:
They can already develop it, SF6, which means single family housing with lots at least 6000 sq ft big.
They want SF4.5, single family housing with lots at least 4500 sq ft.
So they can fit in more houses under SF4.5 Staff estimates that they could fit 8 houses at SF6, and 11 houses at SF4.5.
Other important details:
WE HAD A BIG FLOOD A FEW YEARS AGO, IN THIS EXACT NEIGHBORHOOD. And a few years before that. And a few years before that. Etc.
P&Z denied this request! So it would take 6 councilmembers to overturn it.
City council also denies it, 7-0, so that is that. The developer can still build their SF6 houses if they want (and if they want to piss off the neighborhood).
The School Board officially gave that land to El Centro Cultural recently, and then came to find out that there’s a weird alley running through the school that still belongs to the city.
So we got a charming history of this alley – before SMCISD was SMCISD, it was the San Marcos Public Free School system. Then in 40s, it spun off. Gradually the city gave SMCISD bits and pieces of this land, through the 70s. But there was still this one alley on the books (but never built).
So we have officially abandoned the alley, which can then be given to SMCISD, which can then be given to the good people over at El Centro.
Citizen comment was dominated by the film studio at La Cima. One person called it La Cinema, which I find hilarious, and will now adopt.
There was a legit community uproar after the last meeting. People are furious about developing over the aquifer. There were two protests, I believe? one last week during P&Z, and then another during the City Council meeting.
Item 48: In response, Alyssa Garza and Saul Gonzalez put the film studio discussion back on the agenda. (I think it had to come from them because they’d voted “yes” at the last meeting; “no” votes (ie Max Baker) are procedurally not allowed.)
The job of the council was to placate the angry protesters:
The existence of the film studio was not up for a vote
It was about tax breaks, in exchange for using the updated city code.
the deal has already been signed, right after the last meeting. (Literally, Alyssa Garza clarified this point.)
I will lovingly call this portion of the evening the Great Placating Tour of La Cinema. For example, Jane Hughson and Max Baker are putting an agenda item together about protecting the aquifer, for later in August. Alyssa Garza and Max Baker are putting something together about how Chapter 380 tax break deals should get two readings at council, not one.
Everyone grandstands a little bit about why they stand by their decision last week. Max is convinced that there must be some sort of conspiracy or real estate deal, but he means it in a more nefarious way than the straightforward way in which this is a real estate deal. He’s self-aware enough to acknowledge that he’s grasping at straws, but chides his councilmates for not being suspicious enough.
Max is correct that there’s a good possibility that this studio will fail. Businesses fail all the time. The thing is, we generally don’t stop people from acting on their dumb ideas. Provided you’re playing within the rules and you’re not malicious nor more destructive than the alternative, you are allowed to build a film studio. And since La Cima is going to build something, they’re entitled to pick La Cinema.
(San Marcos has had its share of bad ideas. Remember the old Mr. Gatti’s building on the corner of CM Allen and Hopkins? The next owners painted the exterior of the building black with daisies on it? Look outside at the sweltering 103° heat, and just contemplate walking into a free-standing building painted all black. It didn’t last.)(This is before it was torn down to make room for the food trucks, which then eventually left due to the food inspector drama a few years ago, I think. So now we have a beautiful slab of concrete with some gritty weeds making their way here and there.)
What have we lost, if the studio fails? Our hopes and dreams about future tax revenue and internships for students. We’d be stuck with a big old building, over the aquifer, that would have to be re-purposed. That’s not good. The $4 million in tax breaks isn’t exactly lost – it’s money we wouldn’t have collected either way, and it ensured that the building we’re stuck with complied with 2020 environmental standards instead of 2013 environmental standards. (At least, I hope that’s the case. I hope we’re not actually laying out money on this Hollywood dream.)
Item 31: the film studio in La Cima. It’s already entitled legally to be built. The question tonight is what kind of tax incentives should they get.
By the end of this write up, Max Baker is yelling “I AM ASHAMED THAT SOME OF YOU WOULD NOT VOTE TO ADD-” and Mark Gleason cuts him off to yell “I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THESE ACCUSATIONS ANYMORE!!”
(“Yelling” is probably overstating it, but at least seething with anger. It starts at 3:27:00 if you’re curious.)
Buckle up! It’s a long drive to get there.
First off: Apparently council-members were deluged with emails from the public. But this is not a public hearing, and so there was not a dedicated citizen comment period. And only 2-3 people spoke on this issue at the beginning of the meeting. So while many people cared enough to write in, we have no way of knowing what they said.
Here’s my best guess:
First, I suspect a lot of people wrote in against the whole idea. The city staff presenter went on for a bit about how the studio itself is not up for debate tonight.
Second, I’m guessing that a number of letter writers took their cue from SMRF, and wrote in based on the SMRF recommended points:
That’s taken from the SMRF newsletter. Those seem reasonable to me.
The staff presentation goes like this:
Please stop discussing whether or not there should BE a studio. Focus on the tax incentive agreement.
All of La Cima is limited to 19% impervious cover.
This will bring in 22 jobs at 100K, on average, and “up to 1,400 contract workers with an average of 1,200 on production projects at $80k average salary”
Note: “average” is a really bad way to describe salaries. If you have one person making $400k/year and four people making $25k/year, then the average salary is $100k. Averages don’t tell you when your distribution is wonky.
What you actually want is the range and the median. The range tells you the highest and lowest salary. The median works like this: if you lined up all the employees according to what they earn, who is standing in the middle? How much does the middle person earn? That is the median salary. If I tell you that the range is $25K-$500K, and the person in the middle earns $40K, then you can tell there is a lot of inequality and a lot of low salaries. Whereas if the range is $60K-$100K and the median is $80K, then the salaries are distributed more fairly.
With a film studio, it’s very easy to imagine a wonky distribution of salaries.
The city says that the proper comparison is with commercial development like you’d see with big box stores, etc, since this project will come out of the allotted commercial zoning.
The aesthetics of a studio will be much better than the aesthetics of commercial strip mall, because the studio will be set back much further and have much more landscaping.
“Landscaping”, of course, is a term that gives me the willies – do we mean golf course green lawns? Or do we mean swoles and natural grasses and things which slow down water sheet run-off?
The environmental impact. Compared to a strip mall, this will have 89% Total Suspended Solids (TSS) instead of 85% TSS, and impervious cover will go from 80% to 48%.
The TSS increase is meaningful! It’s very important to get all the pollution out of the water before it runs into the ground.
The impervious cover is a red herring, though. Overall, La Cima will be 19% impervious cover. If they save some ground cover here, they’ll use it elsewhere. (The presenter does acknowledge this.)
City Council digs in
Max Baker talks first. There are two articles that one community member sent to City Council, questioning whether the economic predictions are overly optimistic. (This is why it would be nice if emails could be available somewhere! I’d like to see these articles.) My best guess is that it’s maybe this one or maybe this one?
Max Baker comes out of the gate swinging: Why hasn’t staff prepared a response to these articles? Staff doesn’t have a response. It comes out that Max emailed staff at 2 pm that day. I’m guessing that Max himself only got the email that day.
There’s no reason for Max to be so aggressive at this point. Everyone is behaving reasonably. This is how you burn bridges. I agree with him – most likely, the economic predictions are overly rosy. But are they exaggerated enough to tank the project? Not necessarily. (I have no idea.)
Jude Prather, Mark Gleason, and Shane Scott all weigh in to champion the whole project. The economy! The creative class! The bragging rights! Listen, I’m not necessarily opposed to a film studio, either. I’m mostly neutral on it.
Max Baker brings up some technical budget issues – MNO and INS? – which catches Mayor Hughson’s attention, and they work together to untangle it. I didn’t really follow this part, but I bring it up to note that both Max and Jane Hughson are behaving in good faith at this point.
Shane Scott moves to call the question. This is super big bullshit. The discussion has only been going on for about 30 minutes. Shane is basically trying to shut Max up. He doesn’t get a second, though, so the motion dies.
Next, Max makes the SMRF amendment. As best I can tell, this should be a slam dunk. Everybody has said that they got millions of emails from concerned citizens. Either this is a slam dunk, or it should be explained to the public what the issue is.
But instead…crickets. No one seconds Max’s amendment.
Mayor Hughson even snaps, “I might second it if I could only find the language in the code!” but since she can’t quickly find the language in the code in time, she declares the motion dead without a second. Max tells her that she has the email, and yelps for staff to bring up the language, and Jane gets mad at him for that.
Honestly: this is supremely dysfunctional. Max has alienated his colleagues, and colleagues are refusing to grant him any grace when he has a legitimate point.
Next Max starts throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. He’s concerned about:
Environmental spills and hazards
Extra strain on security and police
Creating a food desert for the residents of La Cima
That we are claiming to be comparing this to community commercial development, but in fact we approved measures in November that allowed for this kind of use.
The first two are vague and seem to apply to nearly any industry. The third is something I’d idly wondered as well. The last is true, but not an argument against the studio.
Throughout all this, Max frequently implies that his coworkers don’t bother to read their emails and come prepared, don’t actually care about the aquifer, are hypocritical, and so on. If he limited himself to just one of these accusations, it could sound grounded and would maybe pack a punch. But the relentless stream comes across as antagonistic drivel.
Alyssa Garza now has had time to read the articles that Max brought up at the beginning. She weighs in that they aren’t terribly generalizable – these articles don’t fit with our unique culture and situation. They use different key terms and different levels of analysis. They don’t include a policy recommendation. They’re good articles for what they are, but not terribly compelling as evidence one way or the other for San Marcos.
Mark Gleason gently asks the studio if they’d be willing to consider any extra environmental concessions that he could take back to his constituents, in light of the absolute onslaught of emails he got. The guy demurs and cites the 48% impervious cover. Gleason praises the applicant and asks about rain barrels. The guy is a fan of rain barrels. And of limiting pesticides. So Gleason has two wins to take back to his constituents, I guess. It’s the most timid environmental win I’ve ever seen, but sure.
Some quick bits: – Saul Gonzalez asks if San Marcos bargained on these tax rebates. We are told yes, we did. – Max asks if there is still commercial available to be developed at La Cima. We are told yes, there is. – Max asks about if jobs will be required to be local? And can we require internships?
Alyssa Garza points out that there’s a difference between having out-of-town people relocate and be considered locals, and actually hiring people who already lived locally, and that what makes the difference is often jobs trainings and career pathway programs. Will there be those?
The beginning of the end
Max makes a motion that the studio must have 50 internships. Then he says 50 for Texas State and 50 for the high school. He finally gets a second, from Saul Gonzalez.
Alyssa tactfully recommends that he not pick numbers out of thin air, and suggests that he require an internship plan by year 2? Max amends his motion.
The applicant squirms and protests that they’ll be contracting out with yet-undetermined 3rd parties, and can’t possibly commit to an internship program now.
Alyssa mutters “This is a hot mess.” And then elaborates: The educational tie-in is a substantial part of their pitch. It feels like a con if they’re not prepared to actually back it up with any concrete plan. She specifically says that this is a strong application and they didn’t need to bullshit like this, and it chafes.
Vote: Should the studio be obligated to provide an internship plan after two years? Yes: Max Baker, Saul Gonzalez No: Mayor Hughson, Shane Scott, Jude Prather, Mark Gleason, and Alyssa Garza.
So it fails.
By this point, the discussion has been going on for over an hour. No one is taking Max seriously. Max makes a motion to require job training. Does not get a second.
Max asks about the studio’s discrimination policy: why doesn’t it match that of San Marcos? It leaves out protecting gender identity and sexual orientation. (This is a great catch!)
The city lawyer, Michael Cosantino, affirms that this is a problem, and he adds that the studio also left out age discrimination. He recommends that council fix these omissions.
So Max makes a motion to add in protections for gender identity, sexual orientation and age. Jude Prather seconds it, but chides Max about going on for too long and dragging things out.
The vote: Should the anti-discrimination clause cover gender identity, sexual orientation, and age? Yes: Jude Prather, Alyssa Garza, Saul Gonzalez, and Max Baker No: Shane Scott, Jane Hughson, Mark Gleason.
That’s right: the lawyer literally just told them to pass this amendment. Shane Scott, Jane Hughson, and Mark Gleason all vote no, seemingly just to spite Max Baker.
Listen carefully everybody: that is the sound of City Council decompensating. That is a globby, burbling mess of a City Council.
Which brings us to Max Baker declaring, “I AM ASHAMED THAT SOME OF YOU…!” and simultaneously Mark Gleason shouting “I WILL NOT TAKE THIS!” Mark Gleason shouts about abuse, and filibustering, and calling the question. Max Baker shouts about the actual definition of filibustering. Jane Hughson shouts about people talking over each other and who has the floor. It is not pretty.
At this point, Jude Prather moves to call the question. This passes with a 6-1 vote. (I bet you can infer how that played out.) So the discussion (yelling) is finally over.
The actual vote on the tax incentive plan for the studio: Yes: Everyone but Max. No: Max.
Max Baker spits, “Thank you all for not working very hard on this!”
What is my analysis?
That in a pissing match, everyone gets pretty smelly and wet?
Ok, here goes:
I can’t tell what Max Baker’s actual position on the studio is. Does he think it’s fundamentally a bad idea? Does he think that it’s fundamentally a good idea, but the agreement is sloppy? Is he open to being persuaded, if these amendments were taken seriously?
If you think the studio should not exist, you should make a concise and clear argument why not. Since it’s clearly going to pass without your vote, pick one or two mitigating amendments, and try to coax others to go along with these changes. In my opinion, the SMRF amendment and fixing the anti-discrimination language should have been easy wins, or at least thoughtful discussions.
If you think the studio should exist, then say so and provide a balanced list of pros and cons. Work to iron out the cons.
What Max Baker is doing is treating the proposal as though a procrastinating college student wrote it overnight on the last day of spring break. Max is the professor who takes it as a foregone conclusion that the paper is crap. He then nitpicks every last sentence through a lens of finding proof that justifies his beliefs. Any single correction is probably fair, but as a whole, it’s overkill to eviscerate a paper like that.
To be clear: Max Baker’s moral compass is generally pointed in the right direction. It’s just that he’s got no sense of scale. Everything is a calamity of the same proportion.
Nevertheless, the rest of city council has an obligation to wade through Max’s crises and evaluate each one on its merits. It’s extremely poor form to vote against him, out of spite.
Items 17-22: There are two rezonings that zip through. The first is an extra 76 acres of housing, tacked onto Cottonwood Creek on 123.
I worry a bit about that whole region east of 35 becoming an extreme retail desert. You would not believe the size of the huge tracts of land that have been approved for housing out that way. The vast majority of it seems to be single-family housing. So far, there are no amenities ever discussed – no restaurants, no grocery stores, no daycare centers, no drycleaners, none of the things that make living easier. Maybe I’m short-sighted and the free market will elbow its way in, but it feels very grim to me.
(In general, I don’t understand why Americans are so opposed to having businesses in our neighborhoods. A neighborhood restaurant and laundromat sounds great to me!)
Neither developers, nor P&Z, nor council seem to have any appetite for making new neighborhoods denser. We only seem to approve apartments when they are massive, standalone affairs. Otherwise it’s acres and acres of sprawling single-family homes. When developers are allowed to build duplexes, they don’t seem to want to. Nobody ever attempts to sprinkle 4-plexes and 8-plexes throughout a neighborhood, and it makes me sad.
The other zoning is another patch of La Cima. This is part of the original La Cima agreement, from 2012 or so.
La Cima is a perfect example of the thing that gives me a sad: the original agreement involves both multifamily and single family housing. So they are building a large apartment complex at the front, and then acres and acres of single family homes stretching forever and ever beyond. This authorizes some more of the ever beyond to be turned into single-family homes.
The San Marxist 
